Six leading Massachusetts Protestant clergymen have retested the displaced persons “bill now pending in the U.S. Senate on the grounds hat it discriminated against Jews and Catholics. They filed their protests with senators Leverett Saltonstall and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
In all letter released here today the six said they “deplored any preferential status given to any group because of national or religious affiliation.” The clergymen expressed regret that Baltic nationals were given preferred status in the bill, pointing out that this “results in marked discrimination against Catholic and Jewish persons.
“We protest the virtual exclusion of Jews “by the establishment of Dec. 22, 1945, as the last date of registration of displaced persons,” the clergymen declared. “This date shuts out hope for the tragic survivors of the 1946 pogroms in Poland, Rumania, and Hungary who could find no refuge other than the D.P. camp. In the name of humanity, “they said, “we urge you to correct those obvious inequities.”
The letter was signed by Bishop Lewis O. Hartman of the New England Methodist Church; the Rev Dr. Isaac Higginbotham, general secretary of the Massachusetts Unitarian Association; St. Rov. Norman B. Nash, Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts; the Rev. Dr. Frank Jennings, executive secretary of the Massachusetts Council of Churches; the Rev. Dr. Ralph M. Timberlake, president of the Massachusetts Congregational Conference, and the Rov. Dr. Frederick N. Eliot, president of the American Unitarian Association.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
